[gothic-l] Re: Germanic mutual intelligibility, was: Yiddish ...

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., "Sollers" <sollers at p...> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <dirk at s...>
> To: <gothic-l at y...>
> Sent: 14 May 2001 12:31
> Subject: [gothic-l] Germanic mutual intelligibility, was: Yiddish
...
>
>
> > --- In gothic-l at y..., czobor at c... wrote:
> > > --- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
> > > > --- In gothic-l at y..., czobor at c... wrote:
> > > > > Hi Dirk,
> > > > >
> > > > > I said only "The failure of the Franks to be converted to
> > Arianism
> > > > is
> > > > > explained, **among other reasons**, also by the fact that,
> > > > Franconian
> > > > > being a West-Germanic language  considerably different from
> > > Gothic,
> > > > > the Franks had difficulties in understanding the language of
the
> > > > > Gothic Bible." This is not my idea, I have read it
somewhere,
> > > > probably
> > > > > in Wolfram's "Die Germanen". In any case, this was not
presented
> > > > > there as the principal reason for the Franks to prefer the
> > > > > Catholicism, it was just "among other reasons". The idea was
> > that
> > > > > because of their West Germanic language the Franks had less
> > > > linguistic
> > > > > affinity to Wulfila's Bible than, let's say, the Vandals or
the
> > > > > Burgundians.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hi Francisc,
> > > >
> > > > that maybe right, but I still think that linguistic affinity
> > played
> > > > virtually no role in the decision to convert to Catholicism or
> > > > Arianism. The Burgundians may be a good example, as they were
East
> > > > Germanics but switched very early (I think under King
Sigismund)
> > to
> > > > Catholicism. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that
some
> > > > (West Germanic) Alamanni may have initially turned to
Arianism.
> > Many
> > > > Alamanni fled under Ostrogothic protection after the battle of
> > > > Zuelpich and the Ostrogothic kingdom included Alamannic areas
like
> > > the
> > > > Vorarlberg at the Bodensee. Also, the use of so called gold
leaf
> > > > crosses in Alamannic graves has been interpreted as indication
for
> > > > Arian influence. Finally, a linguist on the Germanic-L has
> > recently
> > > > pointed out that by the 4th/5th century East and West-Germanic
> > were
> > > > likely still very close and mutually intelligible.
> > > >
> > > > cheers
> > > > Dirk
> > > >
> > >
> > > Hi Dirk,
> > >
> > > I am not a specialist in such matters, only quoted what I read.
> > > Maybe the language was indeed not relevant for the decision for
> > > Arianism or Catholicism (in fact, this is also my point of view,
and
> > I
> > > found somehow surprisingly the assertion of Wolfram. See the
case of
> > > Serbians, Croatians and Bosniacs, who speak the same language,
but
> > are
> > > Ortodox, Catholic, respectively Moslem; the Polish, Czech,
Slovaks,
> > > Slovenians and Croatians choose for Catholicism, despite their
> > > language affinities with the Slavonic Orthodox Bible of Cyrill
and
> > > Methodius; on the other hand the Romanians choose the
Orthodoxism,
> > > despite their Romance language).
> > > Regarding East and West-Germanic in 4/5th century (before the
> > > occurence of the second consonnant shift in High German), I
agree
> > that
> > > they could be, at least in part, mutually inteligible (maybe on
the
> > > border of the dialect/language distinction; very hard to make
> > > presumptions, since we have very scarce attestations of West
> > Germanic
> > > of that time).
> > >
> > > Francisc
> >
> > Hi Francisc,
> >
> > I see we agree on this, but just to round this up. Apparently,
early
> > Runic inscriptions of the 2nd/3rd centuries AD, show that at this
time
> > all Germanic dialects were still very close to common Germanic as
it
> > has been reconstructed by linguists. Anecdotal evidence could be
added
> >  from the possible ease with which a Marcomannic noble like
Catualda
> > seemed to have communicated with the Goth/Gutones, while Arminius
the
> > Cheruscan seems to have been able to talk to the Marcomannic king
> > Marbod (around 20AD), thus implying some sort of mutual
> > intelligibility across the whole Germania between Rhine, Vistula
and
> > Danube.
> >
> > Anyway, if mutual intelligibility was still high among the various
> > Germanic dialects in the 2nd and 3rd century AD, I suppose
Germanic
> > people would still have been able to communicate with some ease a
> > hundred years later when Wulfila (or people in his environment)
> > translated the bible into Gothic.
>
> I shall now proceed to totally muddy the water!

> Coming at it from the linguistics side of things, _all_ the
surviving early
> material shows strong signs of creolisation (particularly the
Germanic as
> opposed to the Gothic groups), quite probably as the result of a
mixing of
> Celtic and something else.



Hi, that is interesting, but not at all unexpected. However, I would
expect an even stronger Celtic influence on the Gutones/Goths. As
Wolfram (and others) have shown, the early Goths were dominated by a
Celtic tribal group, i.e. the socalled Hisarna-layer. At this time
Celtic words like reiks could have entered the Gothic-Germanic
language. The same is true for the Vandals, in fact, Walter Pohl and
Wolfram argue that they emerged from a Celtic-Lugian group. As a
linguist, could you provide some examples of Celtic borrowings into
Germanic please?





 There is also strong linguistic evidence
to
> suggest that what Tacitus called "Germani" were actually Celts.



Can you detail this evidence please. The problem is that Tacitus did
not make the attribution Germanic on the basis of language (at least
not always). I cannot remember the details right now, but Tacitus
explicitly calls some tribes Germanic because of their lifestyle
although he knows that they don't speak a Germanic language. It is
well known that some of the tribes that he mentioned may infact have
been Celts (e.g. Lugii, Vangiones, Treveri) others were probably Balts
rather than Germanics.




>
> Secondly, with regard to the Franks:  people are now arguing that
Clovis did
> actually convert to Arianism before he became Catholic; certainly
one of his
> sisters was Arian.


I must admit I have not heard of this before. Can you please supply a
reference and perhaps the basis on which Clodowech/Clovis may be
regarded as an Arian convert to Catholicism?



The chief force that pushed him towards
Catholicism was
> not Remigius, who from his own letters comes over as not terribly
interested
> in converting him, but his wife - some of whose family (e.g. her
sister)
> were Catholic, but others (e.g. her uncle) were Arian.  Consequently
> language doesn't seem to have had much to do with it.




Yes, I agree language had probably little to do with it, and although
his wife may have played a role, the decision to convert to
Catholicism was most likely driven by power-political considerations
on the part of Clodowech himself. In this respect conversion to
Arianism would not have made any sense for him, with an overwhelmingly
 Catholic Gaul at his hands.


cheers
Dirk






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